It is my pleasure and honor to be able to give a happy birthday shout out this morning to one of our very favorite actresses from the great north, Ms. Carrie Anne Moss.
She was born on this day several years ago at a very early age in Burnaby, British Columbia, which is just 4 degrees west of where I'm sitting right now in Los Angeles, and 15 north, and lies directly east of Vancouver, the only city I have ever visited in Canada.
Now whenever I think of Canada, which is quite often actually, I think of North Dakota and the Cohen brother's movie, "Fargo," and all of that snow in it. Snow implies coldness.
Personally I've never stood outside when it was snowing. I've seen pictures of it snowing on television and in movies. I think it snowed in "Fargo." I also saw it snowing in Anchorage, which is in Alaska, back in 1982 when I was getting out of the navy and flying back from the Philippines. I wasn't allowed outside though and could only watch it snow by looking through the airport windows.
So when I think of North Dakota and how cold it is being at the very top portion of the United States, and then I think of the border between North Dakota and Canada, and how that border is the balmy south of Canada, I feel grateful for living in Southern California, even though it's too warm here at the present time.
However I saw a movie Sunday night that was made in Canada, and in it they had open fields of grass and everything, and people walking around without coats on, so it must be okay to live there at certain times of the year.
Summer probably.
Carrie and my niece Keri have the same phonetic first name, which means they both sound exactly the same when spoken. Other than that they probably have little in common besides both being females that is.
As far as I know they don't know each other.
Ms. Moss and my dear sister Cheryl share the same middle name... Anne, although my sister does not bother with all of the "e" falderal, and spells it Ann.
So... what can we deduce from all of this?
I can't think of anything really, so let's move on.
Carrie started out as a small Canadian infant, the daughter of Melvyn and Barbara Moss, and little sister to brother Brooke, which in the United States is a girls name.
As noted above, it is believed that Barbara named her new baby girl after The Hollies hit song, "Carrie Anne," that had been released about three months before her birth.
I don't particularly care for the song myself, but what do I know? Nothing really.
As a single mom Barbara raised her two children in Vancouver, and Carrie took an energetic interest in acting, taking classes and joining the Vancouver children's musical theatre at age eleven.
She was the first member of her family to escape from Canada successfully by touring Europe with her high school choir. They brought her back however where she graduated from Magee Secondary School in Vancouver (secondary school = high school in Canada). At age twenty she took off again becoming a model in Europe because she's so pretty and all.
In Spain, where the conquistadors come from, she got her first break as a professional actress landing a role in "Dark Justice," in 1991. The show was about a judge that turns into a vigilante by night in order to bring to justice high level offenders that use technicalities to escape the legal system... just like Antonin Scalia.
This show was actually an American production that for some reason began filming in Barcelona, and after the first season it moved back to the states, and brought Carrie with it in 1992, when she moved to Los Angeles, where I live, and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, where I used to live.
She spent the next couple of years getting some small parts in television shows (including a 1993 Canadian TV show called "Matrix," about a hitman who is killed during a job and sent to a version of Purgatory called The City In-Between. There he is given a choice: to be sent to Hell for all the murders he's committed, or return to Earth and help people. Guess which one he chose), commercials, and in the play "Outward Bound" at the Hudson Theater. The play is about a group of seven passengers who meet in the lounge of an ocean liner at sea and realize that they have no idea why they are there, or where they are bound, and eventually discover they are dead, something which has happened to me on way too many occasions.
In 1993 or 94 Carrie won a major role on the Aaron Spelling production, "Models, Inc.," playing... wait for it... a model, because she's so pretty.
For a girl.
The show only lasted one season.
Like our good friend Jennifer Blaire, Carrie played a hottie on "Baywatch." She played twins as a matter of fact, which isn't as easy as it sounds.
She continued working steadily through the years before getting the role of her lifetime (so far), as the black latex-clad, eye glass wearing, cyber warrior Trinity, in 1999's "The Matrix," made by those crazy Wachowski brothers.
Regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time utilizing burgeoning visual effects technology, "The Matrix," cost $63 million to make and took in $171,479,930 domestically and $292,037,453 everywhere else, which is almost exactly like... $463,517,383 total, which is almost $636,800,000 in today's dollars, which means it was quite profitable.
I personally added to that profitability by actually paying to see the film several times in Santa Barbara. I don't remember what I happened to be doing in Santa Barbara at the time, but that's where I saw it.
Hey! Guess what? Carrie kind of became a cult hero after the release of the film and would reprise the role of Trinity in two less successful sequels, as well as be in high demand. After "The Matrix," she appeared in Lasse Hallström's "Chocolat" (Haha, those Swedish guys can't even spell chocolate right. The French can't either), with Johnny Depp, "Red Planet," with Val Kilmer, "The Crew," with our friend Jennifer Tilly, and "Memento" (which earned her an Independent Spirit Award), with Guy Pierce, and directed by this guy named Christopher Jonathan James Nolan, (his second feature film, who would go on to make a couple or three Batman movies, something called "The Prestige," and "Inception"), all in one year, 2000.
Ms. Moss was so busy she married actor Steven Roy in 1999, and they have three children together, one boy named Owen, a three year old girl believed to be named Frances Beatrice, and the middle child, another boy, who has no name, so we'll call him Herkimer, like my invisible cat.
Carrie has continued working of course. Why wouldn't she? Besides the two Matrix sequels she has starred in films like "Suspect Zero," with Sir Ben Kingsley, "Disturbia," with Alfred Hitchcock, "Love Hurts" (indeed, it does), with national treasure Janeane Garofalo, and the upcoming "Silent Hill," sequel, "Silent Hill: Revelation 3D," due out on October 26th.
2006's "Snow Flake," also starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, netted several 2007 Genie Award nominations, but only won one: Best Supporting Actress, which went to our birthday girl.
Why just Sunday night I had the pleasure of watching her appear in "Fido," that Canadian film I mentioned earlier, which concerns zombie... affectation, among other things. Very good movie, and Carrie, of course, was very excellent in it (it reminds me of "Lars and the real girl" for some reason).
And last but not least, all of us here at Joyce's Take, including Herkimer, wish Carrie and her family and friends continued good health and fortune, and a very happy birthday!
Happy Birthday Carrie!

About Me

Richard Ruprecht Joyce is a writer of political and social commentary and satire, screenwriter, and the author of two memoirs, "Salvation Diary," and "Skid Row Diary," the first two in his famous "Diary Trilogy," the last of which, "Help, I'm Dying Diary," has not been written yet.